


a love story never starts in october

by codesandhearts



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Polyamory, if u dont think jason lee scott has a praise kink yall can personally fight me, someone give my sweet chinese son a break
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 07:06:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10759239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codesandhearts/pseuds/codesandhearts
Summary: No one told him about the codepedency.in which zack taylor is used to giving love but not all that familiar with receiving it.





	a love story never starts in october

**Author's Note:**

> not my best work but i just thought about zack for too long and this is the result. 
> 
> title from sarah close's 'call me out'

No one told him about the codependency.

There are things that come with being part of a superhero team. Most of them awesome: cool costumes, even cooler robots to pilot, cute kids smiling up at him when they help out at the shelter. Others not so much: the late hours, the cuts and bruises, a slightly authoritarian yet well-meaning mentor in a wall. These are things he prepared himself for when they started training but this thing? This palpable feeling that leaves him raw every time he goes home alone? He never expected this.

Friends have always been an abstract concept for him. He’s had friends, his mum liked to say that he knew everyone in town, but, for the most part, his best and only friend has always been his mum. And he loved that. He loved depending on her, learning from her, going to her when his problems were ones she could solve with a hug and some warm words.

But now he has something else to love.

Jason’s now-increasingly-used look of both fatherly disappointment and teenage glee; Billy’s earnest smile; Kim’s strong hands; Trini’s sense of humour that always seems to mirror his now. Their space away from everything that hurt them in this town, the mines, the lakes, the giant spaceship and annoying android. He didn’t know he had any more room in his heart for anyone else but his mum and their home in a cramped trailer. He didn’t know he even wanted it.

before,

(before sitting up, watching Trini balance herself on top of a steep cliff,

finding Billy in a wreckage he made for a ghost,

being flung on his back, landing near Kim,

reaching for Jason’s hand to pull him in)

he used to wake up, an exposed nerve, filled with aching for nothing in particular.

He doesn’t do that anymore.

 

1.

There’s a cliff he likes to sit on whenever he’s free, though that’s becoming less frequent now. Before, all he had was his mother and his jobs but now he has to add in being a freelance superhero and trying his least for school because Jason doesn’t want any of them to go to summer school. He wants to use that for training, apparently, as if they don’t do enough of that already.

Jason gets like that sometimes. The overcompensating. It’s more for his benefit, all this training, to make his hands more calloused and rougher and more capable of fighting off threats for them. Zack’s seen him training on his own, with Alpha keeping guard, sweat dripping on his face, his hair matted on his forehead, he punches and kicks until he carves a large dent in the wall. He knows it scares him. The whole team does. That’s why they keep at it.

The cliff overlooks Angel Grove, as all things do. It’s nearing dusk now. It’s quiet. The lights in town go on one by one and the sounds of joggers nearby fade into the darkness like everything else. Unlike Kim, or Jason, even Trini, he doesn’t hate this small town. He knows that everything he hates about this town can be found everywhere else. So he doesn’t run, even though he’s tried to. He remembers telling his mum, when she was still well enough to walk, “Let’s leave, ma.” She just laughed and patted his head.

He understood, then, that it was because there was nowhere they could go. His father was gone, they didn’t have any nearby relatives and no money to travel to mainland China, to grandparents he can’t even remember.

But some nights, when he hears his mother’s breathing, he imagines not hearing it anymore. He imagines holding her up and not feeling any life. He imagines being all alone, digging his nails so deep into his hands it draws blood; carving her name into a headstone and burying her somewhere they can only barely afford. He imagines all of that but he can’t ever imagine moving his feet. __This is where she died__ , he thinks, __this is where I’ll die__.

He wasn’t surprised when Trini found him here, on this cliff, once. They seem to have the same hiding places.

“Hey,” a voice breaks through.

Zack looks up and smirks. “Our fearless leader.” Jason is sweating, his earphones hanging in his hands, mouth red and open.

“You and Trini have to stop calling me that,” Jason says but his eyes are smiling.

“Sit down, Cap.” he pats the ground next to him. “How’d you find me?”

“Wasn’t trying to, actually. Used to run around here a lot, trying to get back in the habit.” Jason groans a bit as he sits. Zack wonders how long he’s been running. They didn’t have training today but Zack hasn’t seen him since school let out.

“Really? I always hang out here, weird that I didn’t see you.”

“Maybe you didn’t notice me.”

“Me, not noticing Jason Scott, Angel Grove’s golden boy? Impossible. I would’ve wolf-whistled to show my approval over those track bottoms.”

Jason turns red. “Jerk.”

They sit in silence for a while as the sky turns from Trini’s yellow to Kim’s pink. Jason, next to him, winces.

“You okay, man?”

Jason shakes his head. “Yeah, it’s just my knee.”

“Your bad one?” Zack asks.

“It still acts up sometimes. It’s nothing.” he looks up and Zack realizes for the first time that he doesn’t really know the colour of Jason’s eyes.

“You need rest. You don’t get enough.” Great, now he’s sounding like his mum. It’s probably good at this point. It’s not like Jason has any stable parental figures to take care of him.

“Neither do you.”

Well played. “Yeah, but you don’t see me with chronic pain now, do you?” he asks pointedly. “C’mon, let’s get you back to the ship, let Alpha look over you. I’ll even carry you bridal style.”

“Seems unnecessary.”

“At least let me look at it,” Zack says. “I’ve had knee injuries before, sometimes it just aches.”

Jason relents and brings his legs to Zack’s lap, in the kind of mindless affection all the Rangers have for each other now, and leans back on his arms. “Where’d you get the knee injuries?”

“Fights, mostly. Kids in trailer parks are mean.” Zack taps Jason’s knee.

“Kids outside trailer parks are mean, too.”

Zack smiles. “True. How did I get a standup guy like you as a friend, huh? Chances were slim.”

“Destiny.”

There’s that word again. It gets thrown around quite a bit, specifically by Zordon. Used to be, the thing that tied all of them together to the coins was coincidence, which slowly became miracle, and then destiny. __We found those coins for a reason__ , Billy always said. Billy’s earnest, he believes so much until it’s contagious but Jason is just an old-fashioned closet romantic. He likes to believe in all this destiny crap, he holds onto it, and it’s not like Zack is going to take that away.

“Your knee doesn’t seem any worse for the wear. Maybe it’s just phantom pain.”

“Maybe,” Jason says, though his voice seems as though it isn’t, as though, even if it is phantom pain, it’s the kind that never goes away. His eyes are pointed to the sky. “Look.”

The sky is Billy’s colour now, Jason’s favourite.

Jason doesn’t remove his legs, he just makes himself more comfortable. “My ex and I used to make a point to watch the sunset together. But I never really looked at it. It’s pretty.”

“Why?”

“We always got…distracted.”

“Ah,” Zack says. “Nice.”

“You ever realize we’re never gonna be able to have functional relationships as long as we’re Rangers?” Jason asks.

Zack shrugs. “Not really. Relationships weren’t really on my spectrum even before the whole superhero thing.”

“Oh, so you’ve never…?”

“I said relationships, Scott, not sex. Completely different things.”

“Right.”

Zack can feel Jason scoot closer and he doesn’t pay it any mind, until he can feel Jason’s breath ghosting his. He turns. It’s dark now, the sun has fallen, and Zack can see the faint glow of Jason’s coin in his front pocket.

“Hi,” Jason says, who’s really not as smooth as he means to be.

Zack totally is so he gives out a small laugh before leaning in and kissing Jason, soft, at first.

Jason’s eyelashes are crazy long and they flutter a bit before his eyes open again. Jason Scott is like a freakin’ Disney princess it’s ridiculous. Now he’s the one who kisses Zack, hungry, hand at the back of Zack’s neck, tugging at his short hairs, mouth opening slightly.

Zack has an almost nonexistent impulse control but even he knows he shouldn’t be doing this. A fool with eyes can see that Jason is in love with Billy, maybe even Kim, but never him. No one falls in love with someone like Zack, no, people like him are only good for a moment or two.

“Completely different things, right?” he says as Jason pulls away.

“Yeah,” Jason answers slowly. “Right.”

“I’m still not gonna dry hump you in a public place, though.”

“Reasonable.”

Jason leans in and Zack thinks they’re going to make out again but Jason just kind of leans his forehead against his, which is somehow even more dangerous. Zack closes the gap and kisses. Damn, he’s forgotten how good this could be and Jason is so responsive. His lips are soft, his hands go where Zack tells them to -to his hips, under his shirt where he’s getting cold from the evening and he can feel Jason’s warmth. He and Jason are complete opposites at times and it’s no secret that Zack sometimes questions how Jason runs things. They fight a lot. Even when they’re kissing it’s like they’re fighting.

Zack hooks his fingers under Jason’s chin and turns the kisses soft, languid, lazy. There’s no rush but that somehow makes Jason even more impatient. He whimpers, moans, breathes in gasps when they separate. His hands are everywhere, rushed, frantic; his lips swollen red. And, just because Zack’s a grade A asshole, he moves his lips away from Jason’s to settle on his jaw, his chin, his neck.

“You’re doing good,” Zack says, out of nowhere, just because he thinks Jason needs to hear it.

Kissing Jason on the lips is great but kissing Jason elsewhere? It’s amazing. Zack can hear his high gasps, his desperate ‘please’s. this is just making out, shit, what’s it going to be like when they actually have sex?

“Doing good, Jason,” Zack keeps saying. His hands are on Jason’s abdomen now, dancing up, up, until they catch on his nipples. “So good.”

“Shit.” Jason completely freezes up, goes still, breathes heavily.

Zack slowly pulls away, his hands still on Jason. “Did you just-?”

Jason covers his face, laughing. “Oh, God.”

“Shit, dude, I didn’t think I was that good.”

“You’re not, jackass.” Jason pushes at his chest.

“Hm, that wet spot on your shorts says otherwise.” Zack smiles and kisses him softly, just a peck. “Hey, it’s okay, yeah?”

Jason looks at him again. “Yeah. Really okay.”

“C’mon, let’s get you home. I’ve done enough damage on you for one day.”

They get up to leave and spend the walk to Jason’s house in silence. It’s a long walk but, somehow, it’s never awkward and it’s never weird that Zack just got Jason’s rocks off with just a bit of making out. They’re still friends, they’re still teammates. This isn’t going to change anything. Jason doesn’t hold his hand like boyfriends do or ramble incessantly to get over the whole thing.

Although, when they finally reach the front porch of his house, the insides already lit with the sounds of his mum, dad and little sister, Jason pauses. He kisses him, in a way that they didn’t before. A kiss that says, _I’ll see you later, I had fun today, you’re my friend_ , and Zack lets his fingers linger a tiny bit longer on Jason’s before he lets go.

 

2.

Trini comes to him during recess the next day, a tiny yellow earthquake he is both always ready for and always surprised to see. “Are you and Jason bumping uglies now?”

“First of all, no one says bumping uglies anymore. Second of all, none of your business.”

“Zack, we’re best friends.”

Without looking up from his food, he says, “Debatable. We have never openly admitted that.”

“That’s just ‘cause we don’t emote normally.” Trini steals his donut.

“Okay, rude,” Zack says, tilting his head. “What are you on about, anyway?”

“Jason seems happy today, for once. And I don’t mean his happy-because-I-have-to-be happy but a real I’m-just-gonna-give-out-the-muffins-my-mum-made-to-random-strangers happy, and he’s a teenager so that only means that he got some. It wasn’t me-”

“Because of your gay ass.”

“Wasn’t Kim, wasn’t Billy because I asked and he said no and Billy doesn’t lie, which leaves you, the only trash baby of the group stupid enough to bang our leader.”

“Hey, I wasn’t the one who started it!”

“Ha! So you admit you had sex with Jason!”

“Not even. We just made out,” Zack says with a shrug. “And it’s not like I’m not gonna tell you every detail of my personal life.”

Trini frowns. “I tell you when you ask me.”

“Because you’re weak.”

She throws a fry directly at his face.

Right at that moment, Jason, Billy and Kim join them. It’s a bit weird looking at Jason because he knows what that boy looks like when he comes. But then Jason smiles and everything feels terrifyingly normal. His new reality sometimes doesn’t set in until there’s a trigger; until Billy shares his food with him or Trini punches his arm or Kim gives him her patented smirk.

The most jarring thing in this new world isn’t his superpowers or secret alien hideout. It’s this. He remembers vividly sitting at this same table and watching Jason balance a fruit on his nose with the rest of his jock friends and seeing Kim with her sinfully short cheer skirt and now he counts them as people he would die for. And this is his new normal, to be sitting wedged between Jason and Trini. Billy is talking about a new invention he’s working on and Jason’s eyes are shining just looking at him. Hell, everyone gets like that looking at Billy. Kim gives Zack her mini pizza because she knows he likes tomatoes. And, now, something else.

Under the table, Jason’s hand finds his.

 

Zack and Trini only have one class together: Physics. The teacher is on tenure and honestly now can’t be bothered with rehashing the laws of motion to a bunch of teenagers who would rather be doing something else. Sometimes he just puts on science videos he found on YouTube but most times, he teaches them seriously for about half an hour and lets them out early. They have found a few ways to make their free time more interesting.

They’re on the roof of the east building, taking turns drinking from a flask Trini swiped from her dad’s cabinet. She’s a lightweight, barely even took three sips before she became a talkative drunk. Her current point of interest? Kim.

“It’s just not fair, y’know?” she sighs. “Like she can’t just walk around school looking like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like a goddess or some shit. C’mon, man, you’re not gay, give me some solidarity here. Kim’s hot.”

Zack laughs. “Yes, she is. She can get it. But, ya know, everyone on our team can get it. Including you. And by it, I mean her.”

Trini is lying on her back, tilting her eyes up in a way that just says, __the fuck?__  

“I mean, you’re a hot piece, Trini. And Kim likes it, she likes you. And she knows you like her.”

“No, she doesn’t. I’m cool. I’m a badass.”

Zack joins her, lying down on the hard surface of the roof. The clouds are fluffy today, the sky a lighter shade of Billy. He remembers being a kid and going to the park with his mum and pointing out patterns in the clouds that she would make stories about. They used to do that a lot. His mum always said that his first word was a mangled try at ‘cloud’.

“I love you but you melt into goo when a cute girl smiles at you.”

Trini doesn’t try to deny it.

“And you? With Jason? Is that a thing?”

“Nah. Not a thing. Just a fling. Hey, that rhymed.”

Trini’s eyebrows are knitted in concern. “If you’re sure.”

“I am. We’re a team. That’s important to me. I’m not gonna screw that up with my dick,” Zack says and she laughs, bright and yellow and all-encompassing. Man, he loves her. “Besides, everyone knows he loves Billy. Jason is a relationship guy. He’s the guy who bring home to your parents, buys you a corsage for prom, wears a blue button down to go on dates.”

“Dude, he likes being in high speed chases with authorities and brought a cow into school.”

“I’m not saying he’s not a reckless ass like the rest of us. I’m just saying he’s that type of guy, y’know? And I’m a different type of guy.”

“Alright.” she looks back to the clouds. Silent and pensive, until, “I’m gonna ask Kim out.”

They bump fists. “Right on.”

 

Team hangouts after Saturday detention are usually initiated to the words, “I’m hungry,” which launches responds like, “My parents aren’t home,” or “There’s leftover meatloaf at my place.” usually it’s Kim’s. her parents are always busy and her house is huge. Zack, who’s never really been in a real house, takes every opportunity and Kim, the sunshine girl that she is, always makes sure to force about a dozen boxes of leftover food on him to take to his mum. Zack sees it sometimes -it’s impossible to miss- the collective pity.

They’re all pretty well off. They’ve never starved a day in their life and are only now looking for part-time jobs when he’s been working for the last four years. So they stuff food in his mouth or tag along with him to the pharmacy so they can pay for any meds that need a top-up. He hates taking the charity, he hates that he has to need this much, but he also knows it helps his mum.

And she loves them. They try to visit a lot and Zack might just be dreaming it up but they help. His mum seems more vibrant, more like her old self, when they’re around. They all crowd around her and listen to her tell stories in her broken English that no one even dreams of correcting.

She gets self-conscious about that. It’s the whole reason she stressed on him learning English alongside Mandarin when he was growing up. “You are an American,” she said. “You are from here. No one can take that from you, though they will try.”

He didn’t understand it then but that’s what people tried to do to her after his father died. They tried to take a country away from her.

“You’re thinking too hard again,” Jason’s voice comes through. He’s holding a cup of juice, his mouth is wet. The rest are in Kim’s room two floors up, watching Adventure Time and ignoring homework.

“I think the correct amount,” Zack says.

“You alright?”

“Always. You know me.”

“Hm. I do.” He kisses Zack, casually, like they’ve done this forever. “Kim and Trini are being gross, through thinly-veiled flirting. It was uncomfortable to watch.”

“We should probably get Billy out of there before they start making out in front of him.”

“It’s nice, though, don’t you think?” Jason says. His hands start picking at Zack’s shirt, getting closer. “I hope they get together.”

“Yeah.” and then he’s struck with the realization he’s in a team of five. He was always going to be the odd one out. That’s okay, though, he tries to think. He loves them. He’ll love them in any capacity.

Even this, he thinks, as he pulls Jason into him.

Jason moans, a sound Zack is already starting to get addicted to, and pushes him back, against the wall. Jason is a hard line against Zack, straight and solid, sharply contrasting his slow and almost dreamlike kisses. Zack trails his hands up, feeling the ridges of Jason’s torso, the remnants of his years of playing ball, up and up, with Jason offering no resistance. He stares at him, like a dare, as he pulls away long enough to pull his shirt up, leaving his hair messy, which only makes him more endearing.

He knows what Jason looks like shirtless. They’ve all spent hours upon hours in the water together and Zack’s noticed the way the fabric clings to the soft definition of Jason’s body, but it’s different now that he’s trying to get Zack shirtless, too.

“Hey, I’m not complaining about the shirtless make-out session but if you want to go any further, we should probably find an empty room.”

“I want to go further,” Jason says, determined. Cute.

Jason leads him to a back room, housing only a spare bed and some empty bookshelves. He spends a full minute just looking at Zack and Zack wants to laugh. He knows what he looks like, he knows it’s good but, man, Jason is an easy blusher. He’s flushed right up to his chest, his cheeks. Red, red, red, all over; the colour of the human heart.

Zack wants to remember everything: the way both of their bodies catch the light from the half-open window, how Jason pushes him onto the bed and his laugh afterwards, reminding Zack that they’re just friends fooling around; Jason’s eagerness, the way his eyelashes flutter, his mouth soft and lax whenever Zack says, “That’s good, Jason,”; the feeling of them together around each other; even Trini’s faux disgust at them when they finally rejoin the rest after a few messy blowjobs, the way they all arrange each other in a big cuddle pile for the rest of the evening, the rest of the night.

He wants to remember, because he thinks it’s important, but, by the time he wakes up the next morning in Kim’s bed, surrounded by them, he’s forgotten how Jason says his name.

 

Kim and Trini make it official the next week.

Billy and Jason share a small kiss in the school hallways then, too.

Zack feels emptier than he should.

 

3.

In terms of technique, Kim is their best fighter. She spins, punches, balances and kicks with grace weaved into her movements. Her hits only look featherlight because of how she delivers them but he knows first hand that they’re dangerous. It’s all the training from cheerleading, he’s always thought, because cheerleaders always have that air of soft danger about them. Poison in pink lipstick.

He watches her, throwing blows to a sim Putty, sitting back on his hands with the others because it’s Kim’s turn now. Jason thinks that everyone needs a one-on-one and they all need to pay attention. “We all have something to learn from each other,” he said and it’s true but Zack can’t imagine trying to adopt Kim’s grace into his fighting.

“Whoo, go babe!” Trini is cheering on. Kim is not fazed by her girlfriend’s whoop. She gets scary determined during fighting. One punch, two punch, and the Putty’s down.

Kim turns and bows.

“That was great, Kimberly!” Billy says with a grin.

“Thanks, B.” she saunters over and gives him a small kiss on the forehead. Jason smiles at the blush his boyfriend gives.

Here’s the thing: even after they were paired off, they still feel like a five. Kim and Trini don’t spend any more time alone together than they did before; neither do Jason and Billy. They always still invite him to their houses after school or after training. They’re still the five Rangers. Zack wants to believe they always will be. Jason, too, hasn’t stopped being physically affectionate, even now, even with Billy right there like he always is.  

Zack wants to ask, wants to push and prod and pull at this but he’s scared. He’s scared he made the wrong decision with kissing Jason in the first place, that he’ll ruin whatever fragile, sacred thing the five of them have. So he goes on, he keeps being Zack Taylor, the funny guy of the group. The impulsive shit, the comic relief.

Without even saying anything, the whole team agrees to another campfire. They haven’t done that since before Rita and Billy has apparently packed stuff for s’mores. The five of them crowd around the fire Jason makes, bone-tired, joyous, all at once.

Trini puts her head on his shoulder. “I really love you, you know.”

He wraps an arm around her waist. “Could stand to hear it more. You call me a dick about three times a day.”

“Because you are one,” she says without missing a beat. “But you’re also legit the kindest person I’ve ever known. The biggest damn heart out of everyone.”

“Trini…”

“I’m serious,” she says, looking at him now. “You work your ass off for everyone here, for your mom, and you don’t think we notice. I’m telling you we do. We’re glad you’re with us.”

He wants to say, it’s not like he had a choice. They’re a team, they’re Rangers, but he looks over to Kim and Jason and realizes Trini means ‘with us’ in a completely different way. Jason is telling a horribly bad dad joke, Billy is laughing and Kim plants a kiss on Jason’s mouth. “You have a horrible sense of humour. You’re lucky you’re pretty.”

“I know,” Jason says. “I should go get the s’mores stuff.”

Zack gets up and follows him. “We’re in a relationship,” he says, as a question but also as a bizarre statement. When did this become his life?

Jason raises his eyebrows. “Uh, yeah, can you help me carry the marshmallows?” Then he looks closer to Zack, clearly seeing he’s freaking out. “Wait, you didn’t know that we were in a relationship?”

“I thought we were just messing around!”

“Oh my god.”

Zack sits down on the ground and Jason joins him, leaning against him. He gets it now. How nothing changed and somehow everything did. “How did I not notice it?”

His laugh is small, almost sad. Sometimes, he thinks he knows Jason best in the dark. “Because you don't exactly believe it when people care about you.”

“We’re together. All five of us.”

“Yeah.”

“What does that even mean? Like, team-sanctioned orgies?”

Jason frowns. “I don’t like that word.”

“Of course you don’t, you prude.”

“How much of a prude can I be when I’ve sucked off both you and Billy in the past week?” Jason smirks. “But, I mean, sure? I’m not sure how Trini would like it, though.”

Zack breathes. “How does this work, Jason? We’re five people. We can’t all love each other.”

Around the campfire, Trini and Billy are singing loudly and Kim is providing percussion by hitting a bunch of rocks with a branch. “You can. You do,” Jason says. “You love all of us.”

And he does. Too much sometimes. 

“I’m not saying we have to figure this out now. How all of this works. But I do know it works,” Jason says.

Zack turns and nods. He kisses Jason. “What the hell, right?” he says.

“Right.”

They move back to the campfire and Zack first moves towards Billy. Sweet, pure, good Billy, who gave his life for them. He doesn’t touch him, not yet. Billy doesn’t like being touched unless it’s on his terms but he’s a smart kid, perceptive as all hell, and he smiles at Zack. He leans down and kisses him. Billy tastes like milk chocolate and peppermint.

“Can you make the s’mores?” he asks.

“Sure, man.”

The sky seems like a perfect mixture of Zack and Billy, with some stars Kim’s colour, some Trini’s, others Jason’s. Zack wonders when he started thinking of the universe in terms of the people he loves. They stay most of the night on that hill. The way they started, the way they’ll end.

Before the morning breaks, he goes back home. His mum is still half-asleep when he says, in Mandarin, “I’m in love,”

but she still answers, in English, “I know.”


End file.
